


Adventuring in the Forest of Elrit

by DreamingMoonlight



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, minor crossover, pre-Thor or future fic: you decide!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingMoonlight/pseuds/DreamingMoonlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor drags Loki and friends on an adventure, having heard there might be an interesting beast to slay somewhere in the world.  Things go about as they usually do and Loki is just as pleased about it as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventuring in the Forest of Elrit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asktheravens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asktheravens/gifts).



> alittlethor asked you: _I don't really care what happens, but I love to see Thor get fucked up/hurt/poisoned/sick. Bonus if Loki saves his bacon._
> 
> This is a crossover with the game Odin Sphere, but you don't need to know anything about it, anything necessary will be self-explanatory. There's a lot of Norse mythology worked into the game, so I thought it would be a fun and cute little thing for those who are familiar with it. If you need a visual reference, the Manticores of Odin Sphere [look like this](http://odinsphere.wikia.com/wiki/Manticore). The [Mandragoras](http://odinsphere.wikia.com/wiki/Mandragora) are very cute and they squeak when you walk over their hiding places in the ground (and then pop out when you jump on the spot), but they're meant to be killed and used in potions/food recipes.

Loki began to believe that they had wandered so far into the Forest of Elrit that perhaps they were no longer within the Nine Realms themselves. It was a wretched place for all it's beauty and he could not wait to leave it, would long ago have turned around and strode immediately for someplace more pleasant, had it not been for Thor's insitence.

And, as always, Thor got his way.

The forest was not ugly to look at, with its lush flora wherever the eye looked, the trees and bushes both flourished with brilliant green leaves and vividly colored fruit that was at least safe to eat. But every dozen steps in this forsaken place led to a a shrill little squeak when someone stepped in just the wrong place. And then, should they happen to step on it again--or, if they were truly stupid, jumped in place on the very spot--up would pop the little Mandragora in the shape of an onion from the ground beneath them. It would cry it's pathetic, screeching little whine and run hither and fro around their ankles before someone finally stabbed it to shut it up. Usually it was Loki, for the others seemed content to let it ruin their ears for all eternity, just because it was 'a wee thing that could not help itself'.

That had been a fine excuse the first twenty times. After that, Loki had refused. Even punting them into the distance was not nearly as satisfying and they at least provided some well needed spice to the plain meat and fish that they had brought with them. Of course, they were beginning to run low, as the forest was not as populated with game as Thor had assured them it was, which meant they could sensibly turn back now _or_ they could continue forwards in the hope of stumbling across another one of those little purple grizzlies that were hardly worth the effort.

Of course they ventured forward, Thor would hear of nothing else.

Which, just as much as a matter of course, the Norns rewarded him for, as the very next morning they had gone perhaps an hour's walk when a giant hulking Manticore stumbled out from between the trees and bushes to cross right over their path. Thor had shouted something inane, perhaps for the sake of Asgard or perhaps that the beast would meet its end at the head of Thor's hammer or even perhaps just an unintelligible noise that was meant to be a war cry. Loki honestly had not cared enough to pay attention, too busy being furious that _of course_ Thor had found something to fight and now they would spend _days_ longer here now that the food supply would last them long enough to not starve.

Even watching Thor fly into battle had not soothed Loki's nerves, no matter that he usually enjoyed the spectacle of it. He had raised his hammer above his head and leaped directly at the beast, its vaguely Aesir-like features turning up to face Thor as they crashed together. It could not bend its massive neck very far, giving it a hunched over look to go with the long and pointed nose and the rows and rows teeth set inside its jaws. Its roar was not particularly memorable either, just the same as if it had been a bear of Midgard or a lindwyrm of Alfheim, none of them very different from the other.

When the jaws had missed Thor by mere handspans, he had simply laughed and raised his hammer once more. Sif and Hogun had stayed a few steps back, while Volstagg and Fandral had circled around behind the tall beast, no longer visible behind its huge tufts of red fur and massive purple body. The pure white eyes of the beast had tried to track all their movements, but it was unable to follow so many of them and, as always, Thor demanded the majority of the thing's focus. It was clearly outnumbered, no matter that the six of them likely could have fit inside its body with room left over to spare.

And so Loki had not paid attention, not even when the Manticore had roared once more and lunged forward at Thor, its large maw opening up to extend forward, each row of teeth part of a separate jaw that were settled one inside the other. They reached forward nearly the entire length of an As, as if there were a smaller Manticore layered one inside another, each forming a link until they could slide outward enough to bite down on Thor's leg. It was like a great vortex of teeth had opened up to tangle around any part of the hunters, each one of them the same length as an Aesir's hand.

The crunch of armor and bone could be heard even over the rush of battle, the Manticore still growling as it held fast and Thor's friends crying out in shock and worry. Faster than any of them could do more than blink, the Manticore's giant tail whipped around behind it, nearly knocking Fandral onto his back with its segmented length whistling through the air. As soon as it raised the bulbous tip up high enough, the Manticore snarled again and released half a dozen flaming balls in their direction.

The unknown substance--poison, Loki thought instantly, nothing could burn with such a sizzle and snap if it were not poison--sprayed out at them, only Fandral and Volstagg safe from it where they were still behind the Manticore. Sif and Hogun leapt easily out of the way, while Loki dodged it just as easily, but Thor was still trapped in the beast's jaw and could not avoid a direct hit.

It did not seem to burn him, but Thor screamed from it, his voice raw and terrible enough that it felt like it shook the very ground Loki stood on. A moment later, one of the balls of poison whizzed just past his own ear, the flames catching on the ends of his hair enough to burn them and fill his senses with the horrible stench.

One more heartbeat later, the world seemed to wrench sharply sideways and he could not seem to keep his feet under him any longer. Loki swayed and tried to stumble towards Thor, knowing that he had to help, had to get to him, but a strong grip held him back. It was like a nightmare rising up that would not be banished, he could not clear his thoughts away, not even with Thor only a short distance away from him! And Loki could see the blood running down Thor's leg, he could see the pallor that was settling over his brother's face, the color draining away and the fever that was hazing over his eyes! They must let him go! He had to help! They would all _die_ if he did not--!

It seemed like eons of fire and loud noises that were dulled by the ringing in his ears, until it finally cleared and Loki pushed himself to his feet. "I am fine," he snapped and whoever's hand had been on his arm--Hogun's, he thought, for Sif would never hold him back from rushing to Thor, more likely that Hogun had held them both back until it was clear--finally withdrew.

Behind them, Volstagg and Fandral both hacked away at the beast, the first thing they had done was get Volstagg to stand on the tail they had pinned to the ground, to that it could only harmlessly shoot the fireballs away from their group. Together, they stabbed into the hide over and over, but it only seemed to make the Manticore thrash harder. It was not until Loki dodged under the next rain of poison flame to slide up beside the jaws still clamped around Thor's leg that he finally was able to strike a significant blow.

The length of its innermost jaw was nearly half as tall as them both, reaching forward with straining tendons so that it could hold on to the heavy god on the ground. Loki first used his daggers to cut at these connecting lines, their pink sinew and tender skin no match for the hardened steel in his hands. The Manticore screeched in pain and drew back, letting Thor go to flop to the ground, limp and dazed, worringly infected with its poison.

But Loki did not stop there, he had more than just daggers to summon. He pulled forth a long spear, so great that he almost could not wield it himself, held in his possession only because he'd won it off a dwarf in a tafl game that he'd cheated just a little bit during. Its silver weight in his hands felt odd, so unused to something that was not his preferred weapon, but desperation was a powerful motivation and Loki aimed the tip of it directly at the Manticore's now bleeding mouth and _shoved_.

He poured all his magic into making it as sharp and powerful a thrust as he could, so that it would pierce through tough muscle and into the brain of the beast. There was the feeling of tearing flesh at the end of the spare, the Manticore's howls turning worse until one last desperate shove from Loki finally, blessedly pushed the spear tip right up to the inside of the thick skull. It swayed on its feet for a moment and then fell with a booming crash onto its side, the ground beneath their feet shaking at the great crash.

If he had had a moment, Loki might have savored the stunned looks on the Warriors Three's faces or the frightened look on Sif's face, but he saw that she looked past him to where Thor was still laying, even paler than before. Thor groaned and tried to sit up, but was unable to do more than roll to his side and halfway prop himself up on one arm. "Is it dead...?" he asked with the hint of creeping sullenness, childishly pouting for his prize being taken away, despite that he seemed to be hovering near death.

"Yes, you idiot, now lie down!" Loki snapped at him, jolting into motion so that he could drop to his knees at Thor's side and carefully uncover the wound in his leg. The skin had been shredded deeply, not quite down to the bone, but Loki did not think it would be far off. "You are near death yet _again_ , because you cannot possibly be asked to gauge your enemy before leaping into the fray! So you will shut up and let me take care of this."

Thor did at least lay back so that Loki might pull the last bits of cloth and twisted metal shards from the wound, lifting them out with a careful burst of seidr to separate flesh from foreign material. But he also laughed and patted Loki's side, weaker than would have been preferrable, but it still calmed something in Loki to know Thor had enough fight in him left over for arrogance. "I am not so gravely wounded as that. And besides--"

"Shut up!" Loki had no patience for frivolity in this moment, for just as quickly as he was reassured by Thor's arrogance, he also thought that Thor might well spend the last of his spirit on such a thing as well. "Lie down and just _shut up_."

Volstagg hovered over them, his wide form blocking out the sunlight that Loki had used to better see the wound. "If the Silvertongue's words are turning to such leaden things, is it truly as bad as we fear...?"

"Not if I can get to it in time," Loki said and squinted down at the now shaded wound. "And move, your girth is blocking the light!"

Hastily, Volstagg moved and wisely kept his tongue after that. But the others milled around in the background as Loki tried to pull the poison from Thor's veins with his seidr, their shifting and skulking movements terribly distracting.

"And the rest of you," he snapped and did not turn to face them, instead keeping his eyes on the torn flesh in front of him, not liking the way Thor had not continued to push and prod at him, "there was a merchant we passed not long before we started out this morning. One of you or all of you, I don't care, but go find him again and ask if he has an antidote for Manticore poison."

"Err, how will know what this merchant looks like...?" Fandral asked and Loki did not have to turn to see his sheepish and hesitant look, the halting way he had asked was plenty enough.

"He is one of the Goblins that inhabit this wood, you will know him by the red hood he wears upon his head and the black scarf wrapped across his face. His cloak has a pattern of stars on it and he is small, so do not miss him if he is huddled near the post of the bridge railing, as he was when we passed him!"

It would have galled him how little they paid attention to the lands they stomped their way through if he had had a moment to spare. But all his thoughts of other things bled away as he continued to work on drawing the stubborn Manticore poison out of Thor's blood. He did not know if it took an hour or three or even more than that, but he was perhaps no more than a quarter of the way to healing Thor enough that he could rest when Sif was shoving a small vial into his face.

She settled on the other side of Thor as Loki took it, her face pinched with worry but her tongue held firmly so that Loki could continue his work. "Uncap that and pour it slowly over the wound," he told her, not taking his hands away from Thor's leg even for a moment. "I will tell you when to stop, so do not just dump it all in one go."

"We have more than one," she said softly, but a hint of stubbornness lingered underneath. She knew he thought them idiots, but now was not the time to argue.

"Do it slow anyway," he answered and did not care if she thought him more arrogant than Thor and the Allfather combined. But she listened and poured the sparkling blue liquid over the wound as slowly as she dared, starting at the ankle and working her way up. As it poured into the wound, Loki could feel it dissolving the Manticore poison into harmlessness, so he used his seidr to encourage it deeper, to force it faster into the bloodstream so that Thor's body could do the rest of the work.

They went through three bottles of the potion this way, likely six times as much was necessary, but none of them cared to be stingy in this. By the time they had emptied the third bottle and Sif tossed it over her shoulder to join the others, Loki finally dropped back onto his haunches and tipped over to join his brother in laying stretched out in the middle of the road.

Blackness crept up on him, but Loki could not tell if it overtook him for a few moments and none of the others saw it or if he merely drifted close to unconsciousness only to pull himself back at the last moment. Either way, he forced himself to rouse when he felt a warm hand against his hip, squeezing lightly and carefully, but still only possibly belonging to one person.

"My brother," Thor said, his eyes still glazed with fever and his skin slick with sweat and flushed as if he'd run across the entirety of Midgard twice. "I hear you won a great victory today."

"I suppose you will say you are proud to call me brother and that I've brought great reknown to our house," Loki said, not bothering to do more than slightly roll in Thor's direction to face him. Or at least his head and possibly his shoulders did, but that was enough. "That the story of it will be told for years yet, around campfires and during great feasts, so that all in Asgard and beyond will know of it?"

Thor's eyes seemed to clear a bit with the sparkle Loki's words brought to them. "Mock all you like, but the story will still be told and your valor will still have songs composed for it. I will even see to it myself that these things are done."

"And now you punish me for a deed done in good spirit," Loki answered, but there was a laugh in his voice that he did not mind. "As if I hadn't already given enough to see that you lived through this day. Perhaps I should have let you just waste away from the poison then and saved myself the trouble."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Warriors Three look conflicted, as if they did not understand how the brothers could banter so closely after death, as if they had not seen it a thousand times before. Perhaps they thought Loki would be so _grateful_ for the chance to achieve their definition of a heroic deed, to twist himself back into their goals, that they did not understand his shunning of such things. As if songs being sun about killing things was any great prize to be had. It only made the expect you to nearly kill yourself all over again when next some terrible beast lumbered its way into their sights.

"Ah, but then you would be expected to take up in my stead," Thor laughed and now he did push himself to sit up, ignoring the protests of his friends and Sif's hands on his shoulders. "Besides, you may make jest of it, but you are a fine warrior who has many good deeds to your name already. You hide behind tricks and twisting words so that others will underestimate you and that is your way. But the truth of the matter is that you are my brother and I never doubted that you would save us all."

The tangle of emotions in Loki's chest burned hot and bright, so he could not possibly pull any of the threads of it loose to straighten them out again. All he could do was push all of it aside and let Thor's warm words settle on his skin as one of the others helped him to sit up at Thor's cue. Loki batted Volstagg's hands away, snapping, "I am perfectly capable of so little a thing as sitting up on my own!" before the giant oaf was right back to encouraging him up again.

The six of them managed to get both Thor and Loki on their feet, enough that they could move to the shade of a small copse of trees to make a temporary camp, while Thor recovered and Loki rested. The pulsing of his seidr lines was still uncomfortable for how much he had stressed them and Loki was quietly grateful for the chance to sit quietly.

He was less grateful, however, when Thor motioned for Hogun and Volstagg to draw Loki closer to him, their shoulders already helping to support him to the small clearing and it was little effort more to drag him over to his brother. They dropped him next to Thor like nothing so much as a sack of potatoes and Loki viciously thought he would turn both their hair to snakes, the smallest and tiniest snakes he could find, so that they would not die from the bites, but instead suffer a thousand little itching pinpricks before they noticed.

That would be later. For the moment, he let Thor's murmured words of pride and joy steal over him and seep into his skin with a warmth that he had missed more than he would say. There was a heavy arm around his shoulders and a warm body at his side, another dropping down to the left of him when Fandral plopped down, Volstagg on the other side of him. Sif and Hogun were to the right of Thor, and all six of them settled in a semi-circle that Loki would never admit to finding to be pleasant.

"There is an abandoned castle in these woods," Thor said into the quiet that had descended over them. "I think Loki would like to discover it, for the history that may still be hoarded within it. And, should we happen to pass another of those Manticores along the way, I would enjoy a second chance to fell one mys--"

As one, the other five of them groaned loudly enough to drown Thor out, while Loki and Sif both each sent a light punch to either of Thor's sides. "NO," they both said firmly together and even Thor had the wisdom to shut up after that.


End file.
